According to urban myth, New York’s sewers and underground tunnels were home to alligators and other unlikely creatures, giving rise to such science fiction horror films as Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic (1997). Over the last one hundred years, subterranean folklore and horror films have depicted a London Underground network infested with mummies, yeti, alien insects, cannibals, werewolves and hideously deformed serial killers. This talk will examine the fact and folklore that has informed such films as Quatermass and the Pit (1967), Death Line (1972), An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Creep (2004), as well as the comedy thriller Bulldog Jack (1935) which may have contributed to the folklore of an Egyptian mummy haunting the abandoned British Museum station.
Antony Clayton is the author of several books including Subterranean City: Beneath the Streets of London, Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore & Fact and Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley, His latest book is Mansion of Gloom: The Unsettling Legacy of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Born in London, he now lives in Hastings.
